I sat back against the booth and closed my eyes as it finally dawned on me. “She made you,” I murmured softly to myself. Sadira had made Tristan, and he ran away after being her pet for roughly one century.
“I’ve known about you since almost the beginning,” Tristan said. He reached under the table and grabbed my left wrist, forcing me to open my eyes and look at him. “You were the one that got away. You escaped our maker and have lived your own life. That’s all I want.”
I gritted my teeth and swallowed the snarl rising in my chest. That bitch! That manipulative, evil bitch! I didn’t want to shove a fireball down her throat now. It was too kind a death for her. I wanted a baseball bat. A baseball bat and one endless night.
In one swift move she would accomplish an amazing coup over both Tristan and me. I had no choice but to retrieve the wayward vampire for her. Sadira wouldn’t believe any excuse I gave for not bringing him, and she would disappear from my grasp, putting my head back on the chopping block with Jabari and jeopardizing all the people in my domain. However, if I brought Tristan back to her, it would not only crush his one shining hope of ever escaping her, but prove to everyone that I was still a servant to my maker despite my “escape.”
“I didn’t escape Sadira. I was with Jabari,” I said, but quickly stopped. It wasn’t an escape. Jabari just took what he wanted and that was that.
“So you escaped an Elder?”
“No, it wasn’t like that.” I shoved my hand through my hair and looked around as I quickly scrambled for a way to explain this. Danaus smirked, watching me with his arms crossed over his chest. I wasn’t sure if he fully understood what we were talking about, but he could tell that I was digging myself in deeper.
Dropping my hands back down to the table, I turned back to Tristan, who was watching me with desperate eyes. “This isn’t about me. I can’t help you. Right now, the naturi are making a mess of things. I need Sadira cooperative if we’re going to stop them, and that’s only going to happen if I bring you back to her. And conscious or not, that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Mira—”
“The naturi are my concern right now, not a nightwalker that hasn’t learned to take care of himself,” I snapped angrily, hating Sadira and myself more with each passing second. I wasn’t made of stone. I remembered what it was like living with Sadira. The nights of screams, fighting to stay in her constantly fluctuating favor, abandoning all semblance of pride and dignity just to survive until the dawn. But now wasn’t the time.
“What about after the naturi are defeated?”
A part of me wanted to smile at his innocence. To him, there was nothing so strong that could defeat our kind. Of course, he had yet to face any member of the naturi.
“If I stand with you against Sadira, I would be claiming you,” I said with a weary shake of my head. “I don’t keep a family.”
“But you have a domain.”
“That’s different, and you know it.” Ruling a domain, you were the peacekeeper and arm of the Coven for a specific area. The head of a family was more than that—in general, a family unit protected each of its members against other nightwalkers or families, and none more so than its head. Of course, the family itself could be more dangerous than any other vampire outside the family. There were several families within my domain, and they all answered to me if there was a problem.
I didn’t want my own family. It was enough that I watched out for a large group of nightwalkers within a single area. A family evoked a certain type of intimacy and dependence I continued to eschew. Anyone you took into your family generally lived with you and looked to you for direction. I was still able to keep a distance from the nightwalkers in my domain. Sometimes, weeks passed between my meetings with Knox.
“Tristan, I can’t fight this fight for you,” I replied. But even as I said it, I wondered if I should. Hadn’t Jabari fought for me in his own way when he took me to Egypt and away from Sadira?
I was snapped from my thoughts when a scream tore through the air above the shouts of the crowd, one of flesh-searing pain. My head jerked back up to the stage to see Thorne stagger backward, his left hand grabbing at his chest. His sharp fingernails left a trail of jagged lines in his flesh. Dark blood oozed from the wounds, leaving almost black streaks down his pale white skin. His gaze darted back over to me, filled with pain and confusion. Around us, the crowd went wild. They all thought it was part of the act.
Lurching to my feet, I took a step forward, but was stopped by the press of screaming fans as they crowded the stage. Danaus stood behind me, his body humming with tension, ready for action. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a clue as to what we were fighting. My eyes never left Thorne, who had crumpled to his knees with another scream. His face was now streaked with dark, bloody tears. The cuts on his chest were not healing. By now they should have stopped bleeding and started to close, but the thick liquid continued to seep down his chest.
Reaching out with my powers, I scanned the bar. There were a couple magic users, but not one of them could have taken down a vampire, even one as weak as Thorne. I couldn’t understand what was killing him.
“Naturi?” I shouted over my shoulder at Danaus.
“None near,” he replied without hesitation. Apparently he’d had the same thought and had scanned the area. “How?”
“I don’t know.” My voice sounded dazed and lost as I watched Thorne fall to the stage with a thud. He was dead. I couldn’t sense him anymore. The end had come quite suddenly, as if it had crushed his very soul. He was dead before his head hit the stage.
“We have to go,” Danaus said as the rumble of the crowd started to change to fearful questioning. The act had finally gone a little too far for them, and they could sense that something was off. We had to go before they started to think about with whom Thorne had last been talking. I turned and started to walk past the table when my eyes caught on the mugs of beer. My right hand snaked out and snatched up Thorne’s half-empty glass. Dipping a couple fingers into the dark liquid, I dabbed it on my tongue. I spit the vile liquid back out and threw the mug against the wall with enough force that it shattered in a starburst of glass and dark amber beer.
“Poisoned!” The drink had been laced with enough naturi blood to poison Thorne. Thanks to my lengthy captivity with the naturi, I would always be able to recognize that wretched taste. However, most nightwalkers wouldn’t. The naturi were too few in number, and it had been centuries since I last heard of a nightwalker being poisoned.
“The barmaid,” Tristan snarled as he slid around the booth to stand directly behind me.
The barmaid with the pentagram stood behind the bar looking in my direction. I wasn’t sure she could see me, but she didn’t have to. She knew she had succeeded. Growling, I launched myself into the crowd, tossing people out of my way as I waded through the sea of flesh. Bodies flew through the air, limbs askew as they crashed into the undulating hoard. I was halfway across the room when Danaus finally caught up with me.
“There isn’t time!” he shouted, grabbing my arm.
My gaze never wavered from my prey. Jerking free of him, I roared, “She’s dead!”
“We’re leaving now.” Danaus wrapped one of his arms around my waist and lifted me off my feet. Balanced on his hip, he turned and carried me toward the door. Tristan was right behind us, looking unsure about whether to follow Danaus or go after the barmaid. I screamed in frustration and clawed at Danaus’s arm, but he wouldn’t release me. I was stronger but couldn’t get the leverage I needed to free myself.
Looking up, my eyes met with the blue-haired woman that had killed Thorne. She was smiling triumphantly at me. I should have let the naturi she served have their fun with her, as I knew they would. But I couldn’t. I smiled back at her, my eyes glowing in the semidark. Behind her, dozens of bottles of alcohol exploded in a wall of fire. Glass and liquid fire rained across the bar, raising the volume in the pub to hysterical levels. Thorne’s killer shrieked, her body engulfed in flames.